Academic literature on the topic 'North German Confederation, 1866-1870'

Abstract«Bankenmacht», «Verwaltungsherrschaft», «Aktionärsdemokratie»? On the problem of management control in German stock corporations 1870 to 1931The liberalization of stock company law in Prussia and the North German Confederation respectively as well as the abolition of state concessions as a prerequisite for the formation of a joint-stock company led to a debate about the means of control regarding joint-stock companies. The new stock company law instituted supervisory boards as a controlling body, as a mandatory «contracted general assembly», but did not elaborate on a clear definition of their duties. Yet, since the end of the so called «Gründerboom» in 1873, it became more and more apparent that the supervisory boards failed to provide adequate supervision. The law was amended in 1884 accordingly, in order to increase the supervisory boards’ means of control over the executive board. Subsequently, many joint-stock companies developed an oligarchic power structure, which cut down on shareholder protection rights. Banks were heavily involved in this process due to their voting rights as «inside shareholders», but by no means would it be suitable to label this as «Bankenherrschaft».

Abstract "Reciprocity is a relation between two independent powers, such that the citizens of each are guaranteed certain commercial privileges at the hands of the others". The arrangement obtained under the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 might perhaps be appropriately described as a partial "free-trade area" rather than as a "customs union" since the United States and the British North American Provinces were not assumed to draw up a common tariff schedule for their imports from the outside countries. Each participant maintains its own duties against other countries or even colonies. The Reciprocity Treaty permitted free access in the coastal fisheries to Americans and abolished duties on a wide range of natural products (grain, flour, fish, livestock, coal, timber and other less important natural produce). At the same time, American vessels were admitted to the use of Canadian canals on the same terms as British and colonial vessels. Reciprocity was to apply to Canadian vessels going to United States. In the late 1840's the B.N.A. Provinces were faced by that policy which the literature has called "Little Englandism". When Britain repealed the corn laws and gradually the preferential tariffs on timber the B.N.A. Provinces were shocked to be left on their own. A new commercial system had to be developed: reciprocity was the answer. But, it could have been something else: protection or annexion. The direction of the external trade changes with the Reciprocity Treaty. Before 1851, Britain was Canada's main partner (59% of Canada's Exports). But a decade later, the United States was both Canada's major supplier and its best customer. Neither the Treaty nor the loss of preference in the British Market succeeded in destroying the Trade of B.N.A. Provinces with the United Kingdom. In fact, trade with Britain was greater in 1865 than in 1854. Later, in 1870, Britain took back its leading position. What we see is a diversion of trade from Britain to the United States and back to Britain where the basic commercial connections were well established. The Treaty was disappointing for the "dream" of using the St. Lawrence as the main route to capture the trade of the West did not materialize. The consequence of abrogation was less unfortunate than had in some quarters been anticipated. The Treaty came late after the abolition of the preferential tariffs, and it was disturbed by major events (the crisis of 1857; the American Civil War). After the treaty, recovery of the American currency reconstruction, proximity of the two countries, a new boom in foreign investment in Canada, etc., combined to reduce considerably the potential blow to Canada of the Abrogation. The agreement lasted for twelve years and was finally overwhelmed by the rising tide of protectionism and commercial jealousies and political hostilities of the time. Reciprocity, Confederation, the Nation Policy, the St. Lawrence Seaway (1840/1950), the National Corporations, the pipelines are all the elements of the same continuum: economic and political integration of isolated markets in North America.

In 1871 Anglo-German relations entered a new phase that was keenly observed by the British diplomats to Germany whose reports are included in this volume (the first of a two-volume mini-series which covers the years up to 1897). Yet, when compared with the reports from the German Confederation selected for the preceding series, British Envoys to Germany, 1816–1866, change was subtle, and many of the qualities and characteristics of the diplomatic reportage from Germany can be seen to persist. In fact, the seemingly anachronistic maintenance of British diplomatic relations with the federal states of the newly founded German empire has inspired the continuation of the Envoys editorial project. While diplomatic reports from Germany after 1897 – when dispatches from the smaller German courts gradually lose their bite – have been made widely available through previous document collections, British Envoys to the Kaiserreich presents far less well-known perspectives on and attitudes towards Germany. These multifaceted observations by British diplomats preclude any sort of teleological account of the new Kaiserreich leading up to 1914, and it is to be hoped that there will be future opportunity (and funding) to present the reportage in the eventful years 1867–1870 in order to gain an even more nuanced understanding of nineteenth-century Anglo–German relations.

This chapter examines the years 1866–76 as a period of far-reaching liberal achievements in Germany’s Second Reich, and more modest, temporary liberal successes in Saxony. The first section provides a close examination of the Reichstag elections of February 1867, when Germans confronted the novelty of mass politics. It considers principal campaign themes and key races in order to convey the look and feel of this election contest, and discusses reactions to the election outcome in light of the political parties’ future prospects. A second section examines Saxony’s important but uncertain role in the North German Confederation, and the Reichstag election of August 1867. A third section is devoted to Saxony’s Landtag suffrage reform of 1868. Liberals, Conservatives, and the Saxon government put forward competing agendas for reform. The final reform reflected a mix of liberal and conservative ideals, and the general election of 1869 inaugurated a fragile liberal era.

Bismarck’s struggle against political Catholicism and dissatisfaction with the supervision of the schools in the Polish-speaking areas of Prussia propelled the school administration on to a new course after 1870. His choice of Adalbert Falk brought to the head of the Ministry of Education on January 22, 1872 a judicial official who was philosophically close to the National Liberal party. During his seven years in office, Falk broke with the practices followed by his predecessors and introduced measures to dissolve the traditional bonds between the church and the school. The objectives of the school reforms were to professionalize school supervision by the appointment of full-time school inspectors in place of the clergy, to weaken the church’s influence in the school system by curtailing its right to direct the instruction of religion, and to merge Catholic and Protestant public schools into interconfessional schools, providing an education that would dissolve religious particularism and cultivate German national consciousness and patriotic feeling. These innovations thrust school politics into the foreground of the Kulturkampf in Prussia. School affairs became a matter of high politics for Bismarck when groups whom he regarded as enemies of the German Empire coalesced into a Catholic political party in 1870. Opposition in the Catholic Rhineland to Prussia’s aggressive war against Austria in 1866 led him to question the political loyalty of the Catholics, and the political behavior of the Catholics after the founding of the North German Confederation confirmed his suspicion. While the Polish faction in the Reichstag of 1867 protested the absorption of Polish Prussia into a German confederation, other Catholic deputies took up the defense of federalism and criticized those articles in Bismarck’s draft of the constitution that created too strong a central government. In the final vote the Catholics formed part of the minority that rejected the constitution. This act reinforced his image of political Catholicism as an intransigent and unpatriotic opposition. The organization of the Center party was a defensive response to the vulnerable position of the Catholic minority in the new empire, which had a political climate of liberal anticlericalism and Protestant nationalist euphoria that seemed to threaten the rights and interests of the Catholic church.